Can the Columbia/Snake river basin "have its cake and eat it too," -- i.e., enjoy sustainable harvests of salmon and steelhead while also lifting beleaguered wild, naturally spawning populations toward recovery?

Yes it can, in most cases, according to a scientific panel assembled to examine how hatcheries might be used in the future to contribute to conservation and harvest goals.

But it will require considerable shifting of hatchery and harvest strategies, and an added dose of habitat restoration.

"It is not a small amount of change that we're going to be asking folks to be making," Peter Paquet told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council during its meeting last month in Missoula, Mont. Paquet is the Council's wildlife and resident fish manager, and a member of the long-standing Hatchery Scientific Review Group.

The 18-member HSRG includes members affiliated with federal, state and tribal fishery management agencies in the region as well as private consultants and academics.

The HSRG was established in 2005 at the direction of Congress to assess hatchery and harvest effects on efforts to recover Columbia basin salmon and steelhead stocks that are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Among its tools is the All-H Analyzer statistical model, which allows researchers to judge how particular changes to the existing management could affect productivity of listed fish. Those changes could include habitat improvements, changes to hatchery and harvest management and/or hydro system operations.

Now in its third year, the process has entered the home stretch.

"We'll have the work done by the end of December," Paquet said of the compilation of the analysis from reviews of about 300 populations of salmon and steelhead, including 100 that spawn naturally. Each of the remaining 200 populations has a hatchery component.

Paquet said the final reports would likely be available by mid- to late January. They will include reviews of and recommendations for every population and every federal, private, state or tribal hatchery program. The final reports will also include "roll-ups" to the "evolutionarily significant unit" level – analysis of groupings of stocks that share territory with the 13 listed salmon and steelhead species.

The recommendations will range from the elimination of some hatchery programs to developing more selective fisheries to reduce the straying of hatchery fish onto spawning grounds to improving hatchery broodstock.

The HSRG has toured facilities and programs, considered population and habitat information provided by the managers, taken into account program goals, considered the benefits and risks to all populations that result from each hatchery program, met with the managers to discuss the findings, and then produced specific recommendations for reducing the risks and maximizing benefits from each program. The first review was held in July 2006.

The objective of the HSRG is to assemble, organize, and apply the best available scientific information and to provide guidance to the policymakers and technical staff who are implementing hatchery reform.

The HSRG is "focusing pretty exclusively on the science," knowing that some of its recommendations may not be embraced by policy makers, Paquet said. Individual fish population reports compiled for the study stress that the HSRG recommendations may not be the only solution.

"What we may see from some of the analysis is that U.S. v Oregon may not be best in terms of the scientific outcome," Paquet told the Council. The U.S. District Court-supervised U.S. v Oregon process brings state, tribal and federal experts together to develop Columbia River mainstem harvest and artificial production prescriptions.

There could well be other strategies that are consistent with principles established by the HSRG, Paquet said.

Council Chair Bill Booth of Idaho asked if the principles and recommendations would be "enforceable guidelines?"

Not in themselves, Paquet said, though the information will be considered as NOAA Fisheries builds a hatchery biological opinion in the coming months. And the Council is considering including the HSRG recommendations as amendments to its Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program.

NOAA BiOps judge whether particular actions jeopardize the survival of listed anadromous fish species. The Council program, funded by the Bonneville Power Administration, is a source of funding for hatchery construction and operations and maintenance.

"The HSRG determined that management decisions about hatchery programs must be made in the context of the particular circumstances in a given watershed. This approach requires an understanding of the current and expected future goals for all natural and hatchery stocks in an ecosystem -- along with the habitat on which they depend -- as well as harvest and conservation goals," according to an explanation of the process on the Hatchery Reform web site. "Only within this context can it be determined if a hatchery program is an appropriate tool for helping to reach harvest and conservation goals for a given population and, if so, what size and type of program is appropriate."

Much of the guidance provided in HSRG reviews completed last year for lower Columbia stocks, and in the soon-to-be-completed upriver reviews, focus on achieving the proper ratio of hatchery origin fish to natural origin fish in the hatchery and on the spawning ground.

The principle is that higher percentages of locally adapted wild stocks infused into hatchery broodstock, and less mixing of hatchery strays on spawning grounds, will bode well for salmon and steelhead productivity.

"The science on that is pretty clear," Paquet said. Naturally adapted and genetically diverse wild populations are more productive than hatchery origin spawners.

Paquet said research shows that many of the lower river naturally produced stocks are twice as productive at spawning time as hatchery strays. Upriver wild stocks were generally 15 to 20 percent more productive.

"The higher the productivity the more they will seed the habitat," Paquet said. "If you get these stocks healthy enough you can eventually start harvesting some of the wild fish."

Also important is continued habitat improvement so increased productivity has room to grow. Higher productivity "can almost double the benefit from habitat type projects," Paquet told the Council, whose program also funds much habitat restoration and protection.

"There are two separate forces that are working out there. We're trying to balance them," Paquet said of the HSRG.

Natural selection "drives the genetic fitness of wild populations" that have adapted over time to include the genetic diversity that allows them to persist, Paquet said. The cycling of fish for generations in hatcheries tends to shrink their genetic diversity.

The goal would be to "shift those gene frequencies in the hatchery back toward those of fish in the wild," he said, "and reduce the number of hatchery origin spawners that are out there."

"In the lower Columbia, what we're seeing is where we're making those changes we're actually seeing an increase in harvest" in scenarios where wild production is boosted and targeted selective fisheries remove hatchery fish that might otherwise strayed.

The reviews have been carried out in conjunction with a Steering Committee comprised of representatives from fisheries agencies in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; NOAA Fisheries; and tribal agencies in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

The Pacific Northwest Hatchery Reform Program can be found at: http://hatcheryreform.us/prod/site/alias__default/home/308/home.aspx

To download the latest population reports go to www.managingforsuccess.us/mfs